The Barn Steakhouse — Restaurant in Evanston Township

This is a Covid-19 review, which means, I am well aware of the hardships and challenges facing the industry: on the fly changes to structure, staffing, menus (with a new chef, of all things), reinstitution of hygiene and safety standards..etcetera. I can't even imagine. I was in the restaurant industry for all of my life (at its highest levels) and this message isn't about my acumen but, ironically, I gave serious consideration to an opportunity at The Barn, upon arriving to Illinois. I didn't attend my requested interview but up until this experience (and during this experience) I bragged that I, could have, potentially worked for such a "namely" restaurant or individual, at least.

So, my fiance and I arrived at the restaurant early and was greeted by a young man named Matt, who very graciously took us to our table. And told us that Luke, would be our server.

Preface: this is in fact our anniversary and her birthday dinner. On Wednesday night I was admitted into the hospital and through all of the pain and meds, I told them that I would not be in the hospital no later than Saturday at 2pm...so that I can make this reservation. I walked learned medical professionals through the fastest and most effective ways of treating my ailment (with help from my smart phone) so that I could make this reservation. I threatened leaving the hospital against medical advice, to make this reservation. So, not only was the anniversary important, the restaurant that we had chosen was important as well. Seeing as we had the week previous driven an hour and a half, past Naperville just for outdoor salads. But, I digress:

We take our seat and it is five and an half minutes before we are approached by our server Luke. Who by my fiancee's account, was as high as the price of chicken. Since I don't partake in the devil's lettuce. I had to take her word for it. But as a Restaurateur, I knew, just as any other coherent individual would know, that it isn't acceptable. He asks if we would like to order any drink. He was quiet and a little hard to understand but keeping his distance and his mask on is what is affording us this luxury of restaurant dining amidst a pandemic. No fault of Luke's but he clear misunderstood us twice and scurried off immediately after our order.

Given that we had 5 minutes to consider options, we were ready. So, after another 7 minutes of waiting for our drinks, Luke returns, drops off the drinks, and says that he will give us a couple of sips before he takes out order. Which if you are doing to math has been 12 mintues and 30 seconds. I reply, we are actually ready to place an order. He tells me that he is late on a greet, and that typically orders are taken all at once....that there is a 2 hour table limit but there is no rush, and that he will be right back. He walks away not giving me the chance to explain that we had come up with an entire order (he even made a tired, except for dessert but its always good to blah, blah, chili's upsale joke...we nervous laughed) and that we were not looking to utilize the full 2 hour table limit. We are table turners. Because of my industry background.

So, when Luke comes back to our table and asks what we would like to order. I told him that we booked this reservation for our anniversary, and its a bit of a shame that that hasn't been acknowledged yet. (I didnt a stint at Darden and they did more didnt say this but was thinking it) It should have been on the reservation. And that the service, so far, as been absolutely inadequate for the reputation this restaurant has. Luke stopped me right there and told me that he had been serving for 25 years. My reply was what I've seen so far was not reflective of a 25 year server, and that his work history isn't what I'm talking about. I highlighted the aforementioned issues (read above) and finished with we are ready to give our order if he is ready to take it.

Running out of letter space but long story short. Not, a great experience at all. Only saving grace was the Aviation Cocktail....

Entering The Barn for the very first time, I got a feeling of déjà vu. The seating on the main floor of about 60 and then the seating up on the second level overlooking the main dining room, reminded me of when I was the chef of Zaven’s in Chicago. The name The Barn is appropriate, since historically it was a barn. The ambiance is soft lighting with table cloths on the center tables, but not on the wall lined tables. I’m not quite sure why this was the case, unless they ran out of table cloths? Most of the staff appears to be young college aged women, which I’m sure most will enjoy, but I look for excellent service when patronizing an expensive restaurant that has a wonderful menu, pricy, but very nice. Our waitress came to the table to tell us about the menu and if we wished for drinks. I mentioned to her that my hearing is much slower that her speech. She did not slow down ,therefore we missed most of what she said through her slight accent. She appeared to be very nervous and never read the table throughout the evening our table conferred the same thoughts. Beside the above issue, I found the food itself to be excellent, with layers of flavor and texture on all the dishes served. My compliments to the head chef. I ordered the Prix Fixe Dinner of the “Manhattan Cut” that comes with a very tasty salad and a dessert of “Pecan Streusel Carrot Cake.” I didn’t understand a “Manhattan cut,” so I asked our waitress. She really didn’t know what cut it really was. The steak was cooked as ordered and was tender as very tasty, covered with a light glasse sauce. The German butterball potatoes were delicious as well. My wife’s salmon was as good as it gets as well. My in-laws are vegetarians so they ordered the Mack and cheese, Brussels sprouts and the “selection of Artisanal Cheeses.” Now this is very misleading and not described appropriately at all. The waitress didn’t do justice to explain it either. What came out was a lovely wood plank with two little pieces of cheese and the rest of the board was filled with a couple of slices of a nice looking bread, a couple pieces of dried apricots, on little piece of a honey comb, a few nuts etc. Where was the cheese? If you read the menu (unclear) apparently you only get one type of cheese, not a selection. If you want a selection, each different type of cheese is a “selection.” So if you would like three different types of cheese on your plank then you will pay 3 times the cost, about $33.00 for three little pieces of cheese. Again the waitress was difficult to understand because she spoke so fast, we couldn’t understand what she was saying. I absolutely loved the dessert that came with the dinner. Our dinner was a celebration of two birthdays, one 91 years old and mine of 77 years. We will return for their wonderful food, with exception, and hope the service improves. If this review was helpful, please look 👀 below 👇 and tap the thumbs 👍 up. You can also follow me on Google Maps to find other good...

We had such an interesting mix of an experience here. Came here on a Saturday night, with an early (5:30p) reservation. It was a busy night. The place is amazing - it has very high ceilings, brick walls and a great ambience. It is kind of hidden as you walk in from an alley, and the outside is very unassuming, but when you walk in you find a wonderfully designed, warm and welcoming dining hall. We were seated on the balcony which provided amazing views of the restaurant.

We had Jacob welcoming us and filling our water glasses. Jacob was amazing - he had just the right amount of polite and professional friendliness and he was courteous and attentive. Then came our waiter, David. David ended up being the counterbalance to the lots of positives of The Barn. He wasn’t particularly polite and he was really not friendly to us. When I asked for a cocktail menu he basically yelled at me saying “if we have WHAT??”, and pointed to the menu in my hand “the cocktails are right there”. As he was cleaning up our plates from the table he rudely interrupted our conversation “can you pass me that knife?” - this might pass at Lou Malnatis but in a steakhouse the caliber of The Barn, I would respectfully expect a higher level of service. All throughout our dinner we felt as if we were a burden on his schedule that night.

We did stay longer than most I’ll admit, so at some point a wonderful manager named Kathleen (?) came up to us and asked us to relocate to another table. She handled this so very professionally, she offered us dessert on the house for this slight inconvenience so we didn’t mind at all. And the desserts were absolutely fantastic.

All in all, while we didn’t quite enjoy the service by David, everything else was lovely. I definitely recommend The Barn - the food was fantastic (our group tried the steak: the filet mignon was great, the calf liver was outstanding (it’s not often that I find a well prepared liver dish on the menu) and the swordfish - this was not as well loved as the other two. The desserts were fabulous - the cheesecake was light and airy, the chocolate cake rich and scrumptious, the carrot cake spicy and wonderful). The army navy cocktail was also really good. I’ll definitely be back here - maybe we will catch David in a better...